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Is it possible that your employee hates their job worse than a Janitor, a Highway Patrol Officer or a Garbage Collector? That’s right, in a recent study by CareerCast.com, Bar-tending ranked 162 out of 200 jobs (200 being worst).  Basing their study on five criteria: physical demands, work environment, income, stress and hiring outlook, CareerCast has exemplified the outlook of bartenders and their job.

How to keep Bartenders

Now that we know they hate their job, how can we incorporate a bar promotion while retaining our bar service staff? RPI suggests using social media. We will be discussing the use of social media in future posts and it’s importance in promoting your bar or restaurant, but integrating the use of your employee’s social media accounts into their job descriptions is becoming more of the norm than the exception!

In a conversation with a bartending friend, she informed me that it was her companies policy that unless they posted on their Facebook page the promotion for the night by 4pm, they were not allowed to work. While this is taking the concept to an extreme, why not incentivize them to do so. Example: The person who has the most friend’s check-in to your Bar on Facebook gets to select their shifts first for the following month? Use your employees to market your bar and watch the increase in customers!

While we are at it, don’t forget to take a look at RPI’s Facebook page and “Like” us for exclusive information and discounts!

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In our previous post, the writers here at RPI discussed how Restaurant or Bar Labor Costs are an easy way to cut running expenses. Now here we are to provide you with a FREE resource to assist! Groupon Scheduler has, for a couple of months, been offering a free scheduling tool for restaurants that allows them to manage simple scheduling.

The Groupon Scheduler allows you paste a “Book Now” button on your website that would directly link with the program. This feature could be used in many ways, including possibly a reservation function that is free! With additional features like adding “Busy Time” to give breaks to employees, as well as allowing for multiple entries for various services and staff members, Groupon Scheduler is a very basic yet easy to use system for a small business just starting out. Most importantly, it’s currently 100% FREE!!

Groupon Scheduler is in beta testing and is likely to change. RPI has not verified any of the claims made by Groupon Scheduler, but for more information read the article at: ITWorld.

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We often write about how to promote your restaurant, but sometimes it’s even better to evaluate your expenses. Operating a restaurant is expensive! In many of my reader’s cases, the restaurant owner may be lucky if s/he ends up with a five-percent profit after all the expenses are accounted for. With so many questions out there, let’s see what some averages are:

Cost of Food and Other Goods

One of the primary expenses in running a restaurant or food-serving bar is the cost of food, beverages and other goods, commonly called the cost of goods sold (COGS). Cleaning supplies and incidentals such as napkins and straws are included in this expense category as well. Ideally, the COGS will not be more than 40% of the revenue a restaurant brings in, according to restaurant consultant Peter Ryan. Casual restaurants typically have a lower cost of goods sold than higher-end restaurants. This makes sense as the higher initial food costs increase when the quality of input products increases. This does not mean that serving frozen food is then more profitable because your COGS go down. Using frozen food will almost always cause deterioration in quality and that is something that RPI does NOT suggest!

Labor Costs

Another significant continuing expense is the very labor that your bar or restaurant survives off of. You cannot operate a restaurant without staff. With a well organized understanding of staffing needs, you can control the total cost of labor by adjusting the number of staff members on a shift at any time of day. Does your slow shift really need two or more servers? Is a busser even necessary when the restaurant is in a slow period of the day? Don’t forget, the cost of labor also includes payroll tax and any benefits you offer employees. RPI does not suggest cutting benefits to save money!

Rent and Occupancy Costs

Rent and Occupancy costs are relatively fixed once you agree to a location. The cost of the restaurant’s building should not be more than 10% of its revenue, whether it is to pay rent or if you have a mortgage. Other expenses in this category include property taxes and insurance. Utilities such as electric, gas and water are also in this category. The cost of rent or the mortgage is a fixed expense while utilities can be fixed or can vary.

Operating Expenses

The operating expenses of restaurants are my favorite portion of expenses. This category includes the cost of dishes & kitchen equipment as well as advertising. A computer-based Point of Sale (POS) system is in this category as well. You can keep these restaurant operating expenses low by using dishes that don’t break easily or by limiting the amount of disposable items you uses. Tip – Offer your customers only one size of beverage. This will help to keep your operating expenses low as you will not need to order multiple glass or cup sizes!

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